Boyne Berries

Sunday, 11 March 2018

Boyne Berries 23 will be launched on Thursday, 05th April, at 8 p.m. in The Castle Arch Hotel, Trim, Co. Meath. Contributors to the magazine will read on the night.

Boyne Berries 23 will be launched by Rachel Coventry. Rachel’s poetry
has featured in many journals including Poetry
Ireland Review, The SHOp, Cyphers, Stony Thursday Book, and Honest Ulsterman. She was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2014. In 2016 she won the Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust Annual Poetry Competition and was short-listed for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award. She is writing a PhD
on Heidegger’s poetics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Salmon
Poetry will publish her debut collection this year.

Boyne Berries 22, The Ledwidge Issue is now sold out. Thanks once again to the contributors to the magazine and to those who purchased a copy. It was a great opportunity to put such an issue together and it was much aided by a grant from Meath County Council Ledwidge Committee and the members of Boyne Writers.

Boyne Berries 23 will be available to purchase after the launch, details of which will follow imminently.

Saturday, 3 March 2018

The twenty-third issue of Boyne Berries
Magazine, the bi-annual magazine of the Boyne Writers Group is currently under
production. This issue is edited by Orla Fay, copy-edited by Frances Browne and
will feature cover design by Rory O’Sullivan. This Spring issue will be
released in April. Boyne Berries 24 is also being prepared for a late September
date.

Boyne Berries was previously edited
by poet Michael Farry, and featured one guest editor, the poet Kate Dempsey. The
magazine has been in circulation since 2007 and the group looks forward to its
25th edition next year.

Saturday, 9 December 2017

She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,She wore her greenest gown;She turned to the south windAnd curtsied up and down.She turned to the sunlightAnd shook her yellow head,And whispered to her neighbor:"Winter is dead.”

The submission period for Boyne Berries 23 is now open and will close on Friday 12th January 2018 at midnight. Boyne Berries 23 will feature poetry and fiction or prose on an open theme.

Send up to 3 poems per poetry submission. Poems should be no more than 40 lines long. Fiction and prose submissions should be no more than 1500 words. Please use Times New Roman 12 and single spacing. Please include a short biographical note. Submissions should be placed in the body of the email and attached as a word document attachment. Submit to orla.a.fay@gmail.com only.

Submissions which fail to adhere to the above criteria will be ignored.

Friday, 11 August 2017

Boyne
Berries 22, The Ledwidge Issue will be launched on Friday, 22nd
September at 8 p.m. in the Castle Arch Hotel, Trim, Co. Meath by Meath County
Librarian Ciaran Mangan. Many of the included writers will read from the
journal on the night. Entry to the event is free and tea and coffee will be
served. This issue of Boyne Berries is a special issue commemorating the
centenary of the death of the poet Francis Ledwidge. It will be available to
purchase on the night for €10.

Thursday, 18 May 2017

Boyne Berries 22 will be a special issue commemorating the centenary of the death of the County Meath WWI poet Francis Ledwidge. Francis Edward Ledwidge (19 August 1887 – 31 July 1917) was sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was killed in action at the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I. Much of Ledwidge's work was published in newspapers and journals in Ireland and the UK. The only work published in book form during Ledwidge's lifetime was the original Songs of the Fields (1915), which was very well received.

A blackbird singing On a moss-upholstered stone, Bluebells swinging, Shadows wildly blown, A song in the wood, A ship on the sea. The song was for you and the ship was for me.

- To One Dead

Submissions that cover subjects such as The Great War, Nature, The Trade Union Movement, Lord Dunsany and people and places in Meath are welcome. These themes are open to broad interpretation and all work related will be considered. Poetry, factual pieces, opinion pieces, memoir and fiction are all welcome and encouraged. On this occasion Photographs and art work will also be considered.

Send up to 3 poems per poetry submission. Poems should be no more than 40 lines long. Fiction and prose submissions should be no more than 1500 words. Please use Times New Roman 12 and single spacing. Please include a short biographical note. Submissions should be placed in the body of the email and attached as a word document attachment. Submit to orla.a.fay@gmail.com only.

The submission period is now open and will close on Friday, 30th June.

Submissions which fail to adhere to the above criteria will be ignored.

The magazine will be published in late September 2017.

Boyne Writers Group and Boyne Berries Magazine acknowledges the generous assistance of the Meath County Council Francis Ledwidge Commemorative Grant Scheme.

Saturday, 1 April 2017

Jackie Gorman's opening words from the launch of Boyne Berries 21 on Thursday night. Thank you to everyone for their participation.

I'm delighted to be here for the launch of Boyne Berries 21 as I've been a long time fan of this publication. It's lovely to have a poem in this edition but it's a particular honour to be asked to launch it as it contains such amazing work, by writers whose work I've admired for some time and those I'm discovering for the first time. In launching this edition, I consider myself as a representative for all the writers that have work in this edition, I hope I can do them justice in some small way. Never have words been more important. It's clear from reading the work in this edition that what is contained between these pages is a salve for the times we live in, because nothing in here can be said to be post-truth or heaven preserve us, an alternative fact ! Writers generally tend to deal in currencies less brittle than this. Reading the work in the collection, I was reminded of the words of that wonderful American Poet Mary Oliver who said about writing - "it's a kind of possible love affair between something like the heart [that courageous but also shy factor of emotion] and the learned skills of the conscious mind." She describes it as a kind of love affair and as I read the last edition of Boyne Berries last week, I was very grateful for many love affairs that have gone into this edition. It's not possible to name all the contributors but I do want to say I was touched, moved, amused, amazed and mesmerized by the river of words that are in this edition. In launching it, I hope it has a joyous voyage into the world. Thanks so much to Orla Fay for this opportunity and now perhaps it's time for some readings. Congratulations to all involved.